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Asia's China Strategy

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Asia's China Strategy 9th Symposium on “Sino-EU Relations and the Taiwan Question” Chongming, Shanghai, China June 30—July 3, 2012 A workshop jointly organised by German Institute for International and Security Affairs / Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP), Berlin and Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (SIIS), Shanghai, with the friendly support of the Robert Bosch Foundation, Stuttgart. Discussion Paper Do not cite or quote without author’s permission Taiwan's Changing Security Environment Jean-Pierre Cabestan Professor & Head Department of Government and International Studies Hong Kong Baptist University Associate Research Fellow, Asia Centre, Paris Ludwigkirchplatz 3–4 10719 Berlin Phone +49 30 880 07-0 Fax +49 30 880 07-100 www.swp-berlin.org In 2011-12, the relationship across the Taiwan Strait has continued to deepen and stabilize.1 President Ma Ying-jeou’s reelection and the KMT parliamentary victory in January 2012 have directly contributed to this consolidation of military detente and political rapprochement between Beijing and Taipei. But has Taiwan’s security environment improved? In this paper, I will argue that in the past few years, and especially since Ma’s election in 2008, Taiwan’s both military and non- military security challenges have intensified and the latter challenges are, in the longer run, probably more dangerous than the former ones for the island’s security and survival as a de facto nation-state. On the one hand, Taiwan (or the Republic of China, ROC)’s capability to defend itself and keep the island secure from outside aggression has deteriorated. In addition, since no military confidence-building measures (CBMs) have been initiated with mainland China (or the People’s Republic of China, PRC) military incidents cannot be excluded nor managed properly. But more importantly, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) growing power projection capability and pressure on the island as well as the Ma Administration’s lack of investment in defense have made Taiwan more and more dependent upon the US de facto security guarantee—the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA)—at a time the United States’ relative decline is becoming more perceptible, Beijing is intensifying its pressure on Washington to stop providing weapons to the island and a debate is looming in the US about its long-term capability to and interest in guaranteeing Taiwan’s security. On the other hand, Taiwan’s accelerated economic and human integration with mainland China has both deepened the former’s dependence upon the latter and enhanced the latter’s political influence and eased its united front work on the island, not only towards its business community but also its political and cultural elites as well as its society as a whole. The growing interactions across the Strait have already multiplied on the island the number of constituencies that have a vested interest in keeping a close and stable relationship with the mainland; they also have the potential to modifying the Taiwanese’s perception of the PRC, their identity and their attachment to the status quo in the Strait, loosening Taiwan’s security relationship with the US and eventually compromising the island’s de facto independence, precisely at a time when the perception of a US strategic decline is getting momentum. Can the Ma government overcome these challenges? Does it have the willingness to do so? Can the Obama Administration’s new “rebalancing” policy towards the Asia-Pacific help Taiwan improving its security? Our conclusion is that, while Taiwan will be able, with the US support, to remain a distinct 1 Scott L. Kastner, “The Security Implications of China-Taiwan Economic Integration”, in Roger Cliff, Phillip C. Saunders, & Scott Harold eds., New Opportunities and Challenges for Taiwan Security, Washington DC, Rand, National Defense Research Institute, 2011, p. 9. 2 democratic political entity under the ROC constitutional framework, its rooms for maneuver and, possibly, its political autonomy will continue to narrow. Taiwan’s Hard Security Environment and Military Challenges Taiwan’s hard security environment has continued to deteriorate. China’s military building-up and capability to threaten Taiwan have intensified. Taiwan's defense effort has been globally stagnating in spite of the announcements in January 2010 and September 2011 of two large-scale US weapon packages as well as a few new initiatives as the phasing out of the drafting system; Taiwan's will to fight depends increasingly upon the US commitment to the island's security; and Taiwan’s military is more and more vulnerable to China’s espionage. Yet, Taiwan has the ability, with US support and assistance, to keep a credible defense if it is well served by a sensible asymmetrical military strategy. The PLA’s Growing Threat For most experts, the military balance in the Taiwan Strait tilted in favor of China around 2005. The PLA’s capability to project forces across the Taiwan Strait has since then continued to expand. While, according to US military sources, the number of conventional missiles pointed at Taiwan has reached a ceiling in 2010 (1,000-1,200), their sophistication and accuracy have kept improving.2 In any event, land-based missiles are just one small, and arguably a smaller feature of the military balance. The PLA Navy and Air Force’s ability to take control of the Taiwan Strait, and impose a blockade over the island, if not yet successfully launch a landing operation, has become much more credible, forcing the US to 3 review its own counter-strategy. Moreover, China’s capabilities to eavesdropping 2 Annual Report to Congress. Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2012. A Report to the Congress Pursuant to the FY2000 National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2000. Washington DC: Office of the Secretary of Defense, May 2012, pp. 21 & 29. PLA Navy SAM (Sea Air Missiles) constitute a new and growing source a military threat against the island, cf. Annual Report 2012, p. 39. Cf. as well the previous two annual reports. However, according to Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense, China had deployed in 2012 more than 1,600 tactical ballistic and cruise missiles along its southeastern coast, including a few newly-designed mobile medium-range Dong-Feng 16 (DF-16), as opposed to 1,400 in 2011; cf. China Military Power Report 2012, Taipei Times, 4 September 2012, p. 1; Kanwa Asian Defense Review, April 2012. http://www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/2012_CMPR_Final.pdf. Cf. also previous years’ reports. 3 David A. Shlapak, David T. Orletsky, Toy I. Reid, Murray Scot Tanner, and Barry Wilson, A Question of Balance: Political Context and Military Aspects of the China-Taiwan Dispute, Washington DC, Rand, 2009. 3 Taiwan’s military and intercepting its electronic signals have been upgraded, enhancing the PLA’s edge in digital warfare.4 It is clear that in the same laps of time, the PLA’s missions have diversified, including, just to cite a few, a stronger presence in the South and the East China Seas, anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden and Military Operations Other than Wars (as disaster relief operations), diverting to some extent the Chinese military from the Taiwan theater. However, Taiwan and the US likely involvement in a war over the island have remained a priority military target.5 Taiwan’s Defense Policy Adjustment and Weaknesses Because of this fundamental change in the bilateral military balance across the Strait, since the middle of the 2000s, Taiwan has been compelled to put together an asymmetric military strategy aimed at deterring any unprovoked PLA attack. To be credible, Taiwan’s military must ensure that the cost of such an attack remains prohibitive for the PLA and China, or at least much higher than the expected benefits of this operation and, as a result, force Beijing to think twice before contemplating any “non-peaceful” option to “solving the Taiwan issue.” Enshrined in the TRA, the US commitment to Taiwan security has remained very strong, although purposely vague; the daily cooperation between the Pentagon and the Taiwanese armed forces is today much closer and better than before the 1996 missile crisis. Ma’s 2008 electoral promises to build a “hard ROC,” to increase the defense budget to 3 percent of GDP, and to move towards an all-volunteer military were well received in Washington. This came after nearly a decade of decrease in military expenditures—by around 40 percent between 1999 and 2008—and political bickering in the Legislative Yuan (Taiwan’s Parliament) about the relevance and financing of the unprecedented arms package granted by George W. Bush in 2001 (including, for the first time, diesel submarines, which the US has, however, been unable to manufacture). However, during his first term, Ma did not keep his promises. This does not mean that he has not taken defense seriously. Although he initially adopted a purely defensive strategy inspired by US expert William Murray6, under the military’s pressure, he has kept and modernized the Taiwanese 4 New parabolic dishes have been identified by US commercial satellites on Dongjing Shan, near Daqiu village in Fujian province, Defense News, quoted by The China Post, 20 June 2012. 5 Anthony H. Cordesman & Nicholas S. Yarosh, Chinese Military Modernization and Force Development. A Western Perspective, Washington DC, CSIS, 22 June 2012. 6 William S. Murray, “Revisiting Taiwan’s Defense Strategy,” Naval War College Review, Summer 2008. Murray recommended that Taiwan adopts a “porcupine” strategy “emphasizing the asymmetrical advantage of the defender, seeking to deny the People’s Republic its strategic objectives rather than attempting to destroy its weapon systems.” Taiwan should, Murray recommended, dig in and rely on passive defense by ground forces, harden or move underground its military facilities, improve its communication and control 4 armed forces’ offensive capability.
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